Spotlight NSP

13/10/2026

SA CANCER STORY | Our massive HPV vaccination campaign is set to slash cervical cancer rates in the coming decades. Biénne Huisman unpacks the details in part 3 of a Daily Maverick and Spotlight special series on cancer in South Africa.

In recent decades, we’ve seen massive advances against several types of cancer. In a still unfolding example, South Africa’s massive HPV vaccination campaign is set to slash cervical cancer rates in the coming decades. Biénne Huisman unpacks the details in part 3 of a Daily Maverick and Spotlig...

12/10/2026

ICYMI | As South Africa’s antiretroviral rollout gathered pace after AIDS denialism ended, the HIV & TB Healthcare Worker Hotline supported healthcare professionals for 18 years. Now, the service has been suspended.

A crucial hotline run for nearly 20 years from the slopes of Devil's Peak in Cape Town for healthcare workers anywhere in South Africa, from the country’s busiest urban hospitals to far flung resource strained rural clinics, has been suspended due to a lack of funding.

09/10/2026

INSIDE THE BOX | Pharmaceutical sciences expert Dr Andy Gray has been writing regular columns for Spotlight examining how South Africa's medicines system works and where the gaps are. Find out more: https://tinyurl.com/3ehda5m9

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08/10/2026

ICYMI | Precious Matsoso's advice for navigating difficult conversations is refreshingly human: stay calm, be patient and keep working towards understanding. Sometimes, she says, the best way to ease the tension is simply to break into song.

Precious Matsoso tells Biénne Huisman how, over three decades, she helped shape some of the most consequential health policy negotiations in South Africa and in global governance. She also shares memories about her Soweto childhood filled with music, science, and political uprisings.

07/10/2026

DID YOU KNOW | South African health and medicines law does not clearly define what is meant by a “medicines shortage”. Dr Andy Gray zooms in on how governments can monitor and plan for medicine shortages.

Imagine you have been taking a medicine for years. Then one day you are told at the pharmacy that supplies have run out. In his latest Spotlight column, Dr Andy Gray zooms in on how governments can monitor and plan for such shortages.

06/10/2026

SA'S CANCER STORY | It isn’t always easy to know what to believe when it comes to cancer. In part 2 of a Daily Maverick and Spotlight special series on cancer, we ask whether cancer cases are on the increase in South Africa, and why.

https://www.spotlightnsp.co.za/2026/10/06/sas-cancer-story-are-cancer-rates-actually-going-up/

05/10/2026

ICYMI | South Africa's cancer story is a special series of articles jointly produced by Spotlight and Daily Maverick. In this first story we speak with rugby referee Aimee Barrett-Theron and cancer warrior Joyce Witbooi.

https://www.spotlightnsp.co.za/2026/09/28/sas-cancer-story-from-the-intensity-of-the-rugby-field-to-a-golden-arrow-bus-ride-home-on-which-one-does-not-cry/

02/10/2026

OP-ED | We can keep writing new policies and passing new laws and launching new reforms, but until we confront the human frailties that undermine every system we build, progress will evade us, argues Dr Claire Botha.

We can keep writing new policies and passing new laws and launching new reforms, but until we confront the human frailties that undermine every system we build, progress will evade us, argues Dr Claire Botha.

02/10/2026

DO YOU KNOW THEM? What connects many of the women behind some of South Africa’s important health stories is not that their journeys have been easy. It is that they keep showing up: https://tinyurl.com/mu3ssbc5

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30/09/2026

JUST PUBLISHED | All medicines and treatments have to go through lengthy safety and efficacy testing, but this is particularly tricky – and often delayed – for babies. These complexities are worth exploring and grappling with.

All medicines and treatments have to go through lengthy safety and efficacy testing, but this is particularly tricky - and often delayed - for one important age group. Elna Schütz explores the complexities of conducting clinical trials involving babies, and why those complexities are worth grapplin...